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Kemper Museum’s fifth commissioned installation in the Atrium Projects series is Divergences by Dominican Republic-raised New York-based Black Latinx artist Joiri Minaya (born 1990). Minaya’s work often focuses on decolonizing imposed histories, cultures, and ideas. For this Atrium Project installation, she was inspired by the idealized Midwest, complete with lush greenery and river scenes, having made a site visit to Quindaro Townsite in January 2020.
In Divergences, Minaya investigates constructions of identity, diverse cultural social spaces, and hierarchies by employing digitally abstracted wallpaper layered with digital photographic collages of female figures as a means to reclaim agency and visibility. The custom wallpaper resembles an abstracted landscape inspired by an archived image of a mid-century sidewall repeating pattern of a lush green forest landscape from the J. C. Eisenhart Wallpaper Company and a vista view of the overlook of the historic Quindaro Townsite, a significant area of the abolitionist community that was part of the anti-slavery resistance movement in Kansas City, Kansas.
Wednesday 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Thursday 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
Friday–Sunday 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Monday & Tuesday closed
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
4420 Warwick Boulevard
Kansas City, MO 64111
https://www.kemperart.org/exhibitions/joiri-minaya-divergences
